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What are we reading? July 5, 2018

Each week, BIV staff will share with you some of the interesting stories we have found from around the web.
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Each week, BIV staff will share with you some of the interesting stories we have found from around the web.

Kirk LaPointe, editor-in-chief, vice-president of Glacier Media:

We might fixate unduly on who occupies the US Supreme Court, but in this instance the choice of the next justice is meaningful - The New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/07/19/supreme-court-tipping-scales/

Find your passion? Bad idea, say psychologists at two prominent US universities. Get less passionate about passion, they say - Quartz

https://qz.com/1314088/find-your-passion-is-bad-advice-say-yale-and-stanford-psychologists/

Basketball fans might be riveted on the signing of LeBron James by the Los Angeles Lakers, but it’s already time to think of the next off-season - The Ringer

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/7/5/17536294/nba-free-agency-2019-los-angeles-clippers

Mark Falkenberg, deputy managing editor:

“Canada’s privacy laws are falling behind and are no longer up to that task. Modern laws are urgently needed to protect us, as both citizens and consumers,” federal Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said in a recent speech.

The European Union may provide a model for beefing up Canadian enforcement; this spring the EU introduced its updated data protection framework, “which aims to give more control to online users over their privacy and hold companies with services in the EU more accountable for their accumulation of data,” writes Sarah Turnbull in iPolitics.

https://ipolitics.ca/article/gdpr-a-launching-pad-for-made-in-canada-approach-experts/

Emma Crawford Hampel, online editor:

Yellow Submarine, the Beatles’ animated film from 1968, is being rereleased. Peter Bradshaw checked it out, and for him, it was just as underwhelming as it was the first time he watched it. “There is a little bit of disposable and flabby whimsy, and between the songs, it often appears to be treading water graphically.” The music still manages to carry the show, however - The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/04/yellow-submarine-review-the-beatles-animation-rereleased

Glen Korstrom, reporter:

Interesting long read on cryptocurrency entrepreneurs riding a blockchain business rollercoaster – Wired

https://www.wired.com/story/tezos-blockchain-love-story-horror-story/

Carrie Schmidt, editorial researcher:

Excellent obituary alert: good writing about a good writer. In 1969, Harlan Ellison published a novella, A Boy and His Dog, which became, in 1975, one of the best post-apocalypse movies ever made, in my not even close to humble opinion. Now Ellison is dead, and I'm glad he lived. Richard Sandomir wrote an excellent obituary about him, read it in the New York Times if you haven't hit its  paywall or if you have a subscription:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/obituaries/harlan-ellison-intensely-prolific-science-fiction-writer-dies-at-84.html

For more obituary excellence, here's one of the Times' obit writers, doing what I reckon most journalists dream of - quitting her job to write more books:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/insider/obituary-writer-margalit-fox-retires.html

Tyler Orton, reporter:

The mind-bendy weirdness of the number zero, explained: Bees have figured it out, monkeys have evolved a certain grasp — and here’s why human understanding of the concept of zero was a history-changing event - Vox

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/5/17500782/zero-number-math-explained

People Aren't Super Excited About Beer Right Now

As a long-time craft beer enthusiast who’s migrated away from cold ones this year (hello, red wine), I can relate to the latest data - Food & Wine

https://www.foodandwine.com/news/beer-sales-2018

PwC Mine 2018 report:

The notoriously cyclical sector is on the upswing. This new report shares insights on how mining and technology are increasingly converging - PwC

https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/industries/mining/publications/mine-2018.html

Hayley Woodin, reporter:

‘Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Donald Trump, and the error of comparison’. AMLO’s presidential victory in Mexico upset decades of national politics. This piece reflects on what the country’s new leader stands for, what he is inheriting, and what it all means for Mexico-U.S. relations - The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-donald-trump-and-the-error-of-comparison

Scotiabank Economics’ latest global outlook covers what its economists expect from the Bank of Canada next week, and how worldwide trade uncertainty may affect global growth. A heads up: Scotia is predicting we’ll have an overnight rate of 2.5% by the end of next year - Scotiabank Economics

http://www.gbm.scotiabank.com/scpt/gbm/scotiaeconomics63/globaloutlook_3Q2018.pdf

Like Scotia, RBC expects a 25 basis point interest rate increase from the Bank of Canada next week. A new report from their economics division finds home ownership costs in Vancouver have reached record, “crisis” levels, in part due to rising rates. Almost 88% of household income is needed to cover the price of a home here, compared to the national average of 48% - RBC

http://www.rbc.com/newsroom/_assets-custom/pdf/20180703-ha.pdf

Nelson Bennett, reporter:

When a professional football player can’t find a place to live in Vancouver, you know the housing problem is bad - The National Post

https://nationalpost.com/sports/football/cfl/lions-player-takes-to-twitter-for-help-navigating-vancouvers-housing-market

If natural gas is to have a future, it needs to fix it’s methane problem. Methane and competition from renewables two biggest challenges to natural gas - Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/07/05/the-two-biggest-threats-to-the-natural-gas-boom/#201fcace42f1

Federal U.S. judge tosses suit by two California cities trying to sure Big Oil for climate change - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/climate/climate-change-lawsuit-san-francisco-oakland.html

It’s not price gouging, it’s markets at work. Blair King’s explanation of how gasoline prices are set is worth re-readin - A Chemist in Langley

https://achemistinlangley.net/2018/06/23/on-the-ccpas-ridiculous-suggestion-that-gouging-explains-bc-gasoline-prices/

Albert Van Santvoort, reporter:

Supply and demand are not the only factors that impact gas prices. Here is a report from the St. Louis Fed that discusses how financial speculation has a material impact on global oil prices, which is the largest single contributor to the price of gas. “The contribution from speculation to rising oil prices exceeded the combined contribution of global supply and inventory demand from 2004 to mid-2006” - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/april-2012/when-oil-prices-jump-is-speculation-to-blame

Here is a PBS story that explains how oil prices affect gas prices: The stock market’s strength is being fueled by company’s purchasing back their own stock. The article warns that this may not be sustainable, saying that the stock market is “hanging by a thread” - CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/corporate-buybacks-are-the-only-thing-keeping-the-stock-market-afloat.html

There is often a lot of confusion around two basic economic ideas: capitalism and liberal markets. These are in fact, not the same thing. Capitalism refers to the ownership of resources and the means of production where liberal markets refers to who determines how goods should be exchanged. This short Forbes piece highlights these distinctions - Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/04/13/its-free-markets-that-reduce-inequality-not-capitalism-or-socialism/#5281eb5d6ec7

Anna Liczmanska, editorial researcher:

How Google and Facebook deal with the new DGPR European Union data rules - Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-29/facebook-and-google-exploit-loopholes-in-eu-s-data-privacy-rules